The present invention relates to social networks on the Web and, in particular, to techniques for aggregating social network data from multiple disparate sources.
Many users of the World Wide Web are members of multiple networks of users, each of which is typically controlled by a service provider which exercises exclusive control over its data, including data representing connections between its members. Examples of such networks include, for example, Yahoo!®, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Given this state of affairs, there is typically a considerable amount of data representing the social network of a given user that is not apparent or available to each of the different service providers. As a result, neither the user nor the service providers are able to leverage the full potential of the user's social connections.